Tight labor market keeping carriers from fully cashing in on high rate environment

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BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Trucking conditions for carriers remained strong in April, with the FTR Trucking Conditions Index reflecting strong freight demand and continued tightness in capacity.

The index read 11.5, meaning carriers can expect favorable conditions to improve into Q3 and stay elevated well into 2019. FTR reports the tight labor market is preventing carriers from taking full advantage of the higher rate environment.

“The latest jobs report suggests that carriers’ aggressive driver recruiting efforts are paying off but additional growth in freight volumes, continued impact from electronic logging device implementation, and extreme tightness in the overall labor market should keep conditions highly favorable for carriers,” said Avery Vise, vice-president of trucking research for FTR. “The TCI will remain at near record levels until at least the fourth quarter, when the market may begin to stabilize due to additional truck capacity.”

Drivers pay is still just over half what it was in 1980 after inflation. Other jobs are paying a lot more than driving truck today. We need to solve the truck parking shortage before brining E logs into Canada and pay O.T .R. Truck driver at least 1.9 times the minimum wage for all hours worked off the log and exempt small companies with under 9 trucks who 1.9 times on payroll and overtime after 10 hours per day. Otherwise we we lose at least 10% of the truck driver like the U.S. did causing a [Truck Shortage].